No Such Animal
by killpoupee
Summary: What does life have in store for loving couple Lelouch (a novelist) and Suzaku (a veterinarian) and their next-door neighbor (professional mooch) C. C.? Bizarre radio messages, creepy cults, and one hell of a mysterious caper. Suzalulu with some side pairings, see inside for details. Updates monthly... ish.


**A/N:** More detailed notes, tags, the full list of trigger warnings, and so on can be obtained at this story's AO3 listing. It's under the Code Geass section, of course, and the title is the same. My AO3 username is _killdoll_. I'll just warn you ahead of time that this story deals with some generally dark stuff, especially later on.

Also there's a lot of sex. Especially in the first few chapters. If random detailed sex scenes sprinkled through the plot are not your thing... um. Sorry.

* * *

The Friday before Suzaku Kururugi flew away to the week-long Symposium of Veterinary Medicine, the local Whole Foods was conspicuously absent of a specific brand of spinach-cheese dip, an indiscretion so hideously foul that it prompted Lelouch to call his fiancée to complain about it in the middle of the refrigerated dip aisle.

"They don't have any of that spinach-cheese dip you like." He informed Suzaku over the phone, examining a plastic tub of artichoke butter. "I was going to surprise you."

Suzaku was hardly discouraged by this, and in fact could hardly remember dips of any composition by name or brand. He was at the apartment's laundromat, pouring bleach into the washing-machine tray. "That's fine." He said blithely. "I don't care. I like it better when you cook for me anyway."

"All the better excuse to make you some," Lelouch said. Over the phone, he sounded a little distracted, like maybe he was rummaging through the grocery shelves at the same time, and it brought a smile to Suzaku's face.

"I'm glad." He said. "You know your cooking is the best."

Lelouch's chest warmed with pride.

The symposium passed quickly and with relatively little to report, and Suzaku's flight landed at 3:00 PM, so on the way home, he dropped by his practice to make sure his intern, Milly Ashford, hadn't burned the place down.

"Hi Milly," said Suzaku, drying off his hair with a paper towel. "Did you burn the place down?"

"Couldn't if I'd wanted to, could I? At least not now." She said, taking the lollipop she swiped from the bowl they kept on the waiting room counter out of her mouth. She was actually sitting on the counter next to the lollipop bowl, Suzaku realized as he drew closer, her knees together, swinging her legs like a kid who'd climbed a tree. She didn't seem at all worried Suzaku would reprimand her; a wise insight into his character, because he didn't, even though he internally winced for the papers she was sitting on. "It's raining cats and dogs out there, Doctor Kururugi."

"Ha, ha." Suzaku said out loud rather than actually laughing, and grabbed a lollipop from the bowl himself. Milly flashed him a blinding smile, but one that clearly communicated how she was not satisfied with his reaction to the pun, and would bombard him with more before he left. (Suzaku subconsciously began to back toward the door.) "So, anything happen while I was gone?"

"Eh, not really. How was the symposium?" Milly answered. Milly was pursuing her master's in veterinary medicine, much like Suzaku had been just a couple of short years ago, and it was a little surreal to have the situation reversed like this so soon. Technically, Suzaku's practice closed yearly for the symposium, and because they didn't board animals, there was really no need for anyone to visit it once the doors had been locked; a simple _Closed_ sign would have sufficed. However, Milly needed the hours, and Suzaku, knew that, when he'd been in this position, he would have killed for experience alone performing basic maintenance on various tools and making notes on how a practice was run. This was what he offered Milly when he suggested she drop in on the days the practice was closed. He was frankly a little surprised to see her here, but then, he always did tend to underestimate how motivated she was. After working with her for two months, he knew her well. Suzaku beamed as he reflected on all this, flipping through the pages of the ledger on the desk. Milly was a good kid.

Meanwhile, Milly took note of his facial expression. "Thinking about going home to Mr. Vibritannia?" She asked with a smirk.

Suzaku startled. " _You_ ," he scolded, but was unable to hold back another, goofier grin as he did so. Suzaku's relationship with the young writer was one of Milly's favorite work discussion topics. Lelouch dropped by the practice often, to bring Suzaku a handmade lunch he'd prepared or something he'd forgotten, and she could see the matching silver engagement bands on their hands, and although he hadn't necessarily formally come out to her, Suzaku trusted Milly well enough to acknowledge the nature of his and Lelouch's relationship.

There was a knock on the door. "Tell them we're closed," said Suzaku, and as Milly got up to do so, he found himself walking past her to the door, shaking his head and saying "You know what, never mind." Milly smiled; just as she'd thought, Suzaku was physically incapable of turning down someone asking for help.

At the door was a woman and a dog. The woman was dressed in a long, plaid overcoat and a pair of black galoshes, and rested on her shoulder, daintily yet firmly, a navy blue umbrella with white trim. had long, wavy black hair which she wore plain, down to her waist, and as to her age, she looked to be in perhaps her mid-thirties. She wore a scent that carried notes of orange and jasmine, masking the hint of a strange musk that Suzaku thought smelled familiar, but couldn't quite identify. Wrapped tightly around her hand was a red leash, which Suzaku's eye followed to a black labradoodle seated obediently on its haunches at her feet.

There was an odd smile on her face and an odd shine in her eye.

"Hello, Suzaku Kururugi." She said.

"C. C., come over here and help me get this stupid fake tree out of the bag it's in."

C. C. eyed Lelouch from the couch, surrounded by loose papers, her nose in what there was so far of his latest manuscript. Arthur was sitting on the arm of the sofa beside her, enjoying her attention. The small, but brand new, television set against the wall was tuned into SiriusXM's Christmas station. The aura of the place held a bustling millennial respectability, one of good cheer and Keurig hot cocoa. Lelouch had invited C. C., a friend of his and Suzaku's, their next-apartment-door neighbor, an experienced writer of short stories, and functional if not professional editor of his work over to "look over my manuscript and help me set up the Christmas decorations". She was opting, however, for a hard pass on the second, with an extra side of eating leftover takeout she'd found in the fridge— chicken alfredo over penne, two days old from the cheap, divey Italian place down the road.

"You look like you've got it." She said, and returned to her reading.

Lelouch was one of the few people C. C. had ever met who could really laugh angrily. He did it hard and he did it often. He leaned his forehead against the wall. "Woman, if you don't come over here right now and help me—"

"Alright, alright." She said, getting up from the sofa and making her way over to the tree. Arthur mewled in complaint at her absence. C. C. knelt down by Lelouch's side. "Look, you're not even doing it right. You have to sort of… Jesus. You didn't even get the kind that splits into three pieces?"

Lelouch shrugged helplessly. The tree was one heavy conical mass, bright white to match the décor of the apartment. It was the first year they'd even had a real, full-sized tree, their previous apartments too cramped to support such a thing. C. C. shimmied the bottom half of the tree out of the canvas. "Well, your first problem is that you didn't even take it out of the bag all the way, diplord. Now I'm gonna count to three, and on three we both lift—"

After multiple tries they managed by some miracle to get it upright in a corner of the sitting area. Lelouch knelt on the floor, panting and sweating, to collect himself; soon, the tree would look stately in carefully color-coordinated gold and silver baubles. C. C. returned to her place on the sofa. When Lelouch turned around, she was feeding Arthur a piece of chicken off of her fork.

"Hey." Said Lelouch.

"It's meat." Said C. C. "He's a cat. He can eat it." Arthur meowed as if to concede her argument.

Lelouch wanted to be stern, but he couldn't help but smile fondly at the sight of C. C. flippantly feeding carb-loaded pasta to his and Suzaku's cat. He couldn't help but be soft on her— after all, she was the best friend he and Suzaku had, more like family at this point, prone to wandering into their apartment unannounced and helping herself to their food. It was difficult to believe that just a year ago, when Suzaku and Lelouch, two newly engaged, freshly graduated students had dug up their roots and moved into this apartment halfway across the country to open up Suzaku's practice, had been strangers to the mysterious long-haired waif next door. Even though she was undoubtedly older than him by at least a decade, Lelouch found himself falling into an older-brother type role with her more often than he'd like to admit. It made sense, after all, that he would miss being a big brother… with a twinge of guilt, Lelouch stopped his train of thought there; he'd long learned that dwelling on that did him no good, and instead he busied himself putting up more lights around the apartment.

… C. C. was still not helping. "C. C.," Lelouch said, clearing his throat. No response. "C. C." This time he somewhat raised his voice. She went on reading as though she hadn't heard him.

"C. C.—"

"What the hell do you want, Lelouch?" C. C. snapped. "You asked here to look over your book. I'm doing that."

"Yes, but when I called you over, I also said 'and help with decorations,' and you said 'what', and I said 'help me with setting up the Christmas decorations while you're here, because it's a two-person job and I want to surprise Suzaku,' and you said—"

"You and your eidetic memory," C. C. cut him off. "Look. Take it as a compliment. The book is damn good."

Lelouch threw a string of lights over the banister that laced the edge of mini-staircase to the studio apartment's lofted bedroom, carefully facing away from C. C. to hide the fact that he was currently glowing with pride. It was not every day, after all, that one earned praise from the mouth of Cassandra Coleridge, the mad genius who'd scrabbled out of nowhere, no MFA program, no publishing connections, nothing, to debut in the _New Yorker_ and have accolades thrown at her work. She'd published two collections of short stories and was working on a third, with no plans for a novel yet. Lelouch was sort of in the opposite boat; he was also a talented writer, but had a habit of picking over his own work until it was lean, and as a result had only a single short novella to show for all the work he'd done since deciding a novelist was what he wanted to be halfway through his undergraduate studies (never mind the lean black notebooks of poetry tucked away beneath his bed). The novella— _The Palisades in Summer_ — was out by a respectable publisher and had nurtured its own wave of critical praise.

Commercially, it was a mass and wildly unprecedented success for a literary novella. He hadn't been asked to speak on any talk shows, or been recognized at the supermarket, but to say Lelouch appreciated the hefty royalty checks that kept Suzaku and himself living comfortably in apartments that most couples their age could only dream of having would be a millenial understatement. But at this point in his career Lelouch was less interested in popular opinion and more in that of the literary community, both avant-garde and established. Mostly, the literati were impressed, but also curious about Lelouch's next novel; the palisades were promising but inconclusive, sitting on the fence— one less generous critic even ventured so far as— between Literature and pop lit, and it was clear that this writer's next book would show which side of the fence he sat on.

Which was why Lelouch's next book hadn't come. Yet. He'd been working on it two years, and right now his manuscript consisted mostly of— character sketches. Which, admittedly, C. C. was chewing on like it was narrative prose, so that— that had to count for something, right?

Alright, then; Lelouch would decorate the Christmas tree by himself, that part at least wasn't physically taxing. The box of ornaments was separated by a cardboard grid. He'd bought all of these, carefully color-comparing them against the nondescript orbs were either white with gold accents, or gold with white accents. When Lelouch finished, the tree looked to be dripping with them.

"Perfect," he breathed. "C. C., look at this." But C. C. did not even seem to hear him, totally absorbed into his manuscript. She pulled out the pencil she habitually kept tucked behind her ear, and Lelouch got a little thrill as she jotted down a note in the margin.

Suddenly there was the sound of Suzaku turning his key in the door and Lelouch realized how _truly time was of the essence_. He had wanted to surprise Suzaku by having all the yuletide decorations— except for the tree, which they'd adorn together— set up by the time he came home. But somehow he couldn't bring himself to be disappointed; the door opened and Suzaku came in and Lelouch stopped in the middle of the den and stood there with an armful of fairy lights, grinning, simple and plain and stupid and stupidly happy.

"Welcome home, soldier," Lelouch said, and Suzaku laughed and pulled his suitcase in behind him, shut and locked the door.

"I _wanted_ to hold you," said Suzaku, striding into the room, "and kiss you," he said, grabbing Lelouch by the lapels of his shirt, "and touch you, and do things to you," he said, pulling him in close, grinning, "and now I'm _going_ to." He kissed him.

"Well hello to you, too," Lelouch purred when Suzaku pulled back, batting his eyes open.

"I'll leave," said a voice from the kitchen, and Suzaku squawked and jumped. It was obvious once he whipped his head around to find C. C. Suzaku had been so focused on Lelouch, he hadn't noticed her, even when she'd slipped past the two of them and ducked back into the kitchen. She walked out of the kitchen nook and left through the front door, carrying a slice of pizza she'd stolen from their fridge. "Welcome home, Suzaku."

Suzaku laughed. "She's like a ghost sometimes, isn't she."

"A very sarcastic ghost." Lelouch agreed. "Now kiss me again."

Suzaku sighed and brought a hand up to Lelouch's cheek. He kissed him once, seeding both of them with warmth. When he pulled back, he was staring into Lelouch's eyes. "You have the longest, prettiest eyelashes." He said with utmost sincerity. Suzaku stroked under Lelouch's eye with his thumb and then kissed the place he'd touched. Inside of Lelouch, his heart skipped at the same time as his body shivered with pleasure, and he shimmied up to press closer against Suzaku. He grabbed his lover's hips by his belt loops and ground them up against his own.

"All the better," Lelouch breathed out, "to give you butterfly kisses with." And butterfly kisses he proceeded to give; over his jawline, down his neck, across his clavicle. "Mm, let's get this off," he began, pulling at Suzaku's raglan sweatshirt, "so I can get you off, yeah?"

"I can get you off too, right?" Suzaku murmured, making Lelouch's stomach flip when he reached down to pull his shirt over his head. _When_ would Suzaku's eagerness to please stop being so unbearably hot?

Lelouch reached out and held Suzaku's hands in his own, though, stopping him in his tracks. Suzaku looked up at him questioningly. "We're doing this out of order, love." Said Lelouch, a hint of a suppressed laugh apparent in his voice. "Shouldn't we get to the bedroom first?"

"Oh!" Suzaku looked down sheepishly. "You're right."

Lelouch barely had any time to relish how adorable Suzaku was when he'd gotten caught up in something, however, before Suzaku was literally sweeping him off his feet and into his arms to carry him bridal-style. He threw his arms around Suzaku's shoulders, internally delighted. The trip across their small living area probably took Suzaku less than five good steps, but Lelouch made each one torture with the delicious havoc he wreaked on Suzaku's neck.

The lights were already dimmed and the blinds were already closed; Suzaku gently set Lelouch down on their bed, knelt and kissed his knuckles (making Lelouch's heart skip), then crawled onto the bed between Lelouch's legs and got to work ravishing him.

"I hate it when you're gone." Lelouch moaned as Suzaku kissed through his clothes all the way along the thin bone-shell of his inner arm, the pulse-point of his wrist, the palm of his hand. It was rising in him, that more feverish version of the desire that always lived between his ribs; to kiss, to worship, to utterly treasure every inch of Lelouch's beautiful body. Not because it was beautiful, but because it was home to Lelouch, and to Suzaku, Lelouch was nothing less than the paragon of everything everyone should aspire to. He pulled the ugly Christmas sweater and plain t-shirt Lelouch was wearing off over his head like unwrapping a present, pulled him close and breathed against his bare skin.

"Amazing…"

Lelouch shuddered and pulled him closer still, running his fingers through Suzaku's curly hair as he began to mark a path of lingering kisses across his now-bare collarbone. Fire rose up in Suzaku until he couldn't help but kiss and kiss and kiss, cover every inch of Lelouch's body in kisses, devour him whole. In every life they flew toward each other like two magnets, like stray planets destined for beautiful, destructive collision, and made miracles together everywhere they touched; here, and here, and here, and _here_ , between Suzaku's legs when he was caught off-guard and the whimpered noise he made and the breathy, husky giggle from Lelouch's mouth as his eyes narrowed and his red lips tilted and he kept rubbing and Suzaku pressed closer. _Please?_ And cinnamon and warmth and fire, Lelouch taking Suzaku's hand and moving to kiss his mouth, press and press and press. Suzaku grabbed him by the sides and flopped him down on his back on the bed and he laughed, grabbing a pillow and hitting him with it, just once, and Suzaku laughed and held up both his hands and said _mercy, mercy_ so sweetly that Lelouch sat back up and kissed him again, _again, again_.

"Remember, on the phone, the other night?" Lelouch asked, between kisses, gentle and sweet, that nonetheless heated the both of them to the core.

"Uh-huh…"

"Remember what I wanted to do to your cock?" Lelouch groaned into Suzaku's ear. Suzaku shuddered, his hands reflexively tightening on Lelouch's hips. Lelouch laughed against his skin. He tugged at Suzaku's clothes. "Let's get these off, come on."

Suzaku had never followed an order so quickly or so willingly in his life. With Lelouch's help, he stripped down (Lelouch was careful to at least toss the clothes in the general direction of the bedroom hamper, but even he, who normally insisted on folding clothes the minute he took them off, was excited now too). Suzaku's cock in Lelouch's hand was heavy and warm, a familiar weight that made something inside Lelouch twitch. "Going to call me sir?" He breathed against Suzaku's ear before kissing his way down his neck, his chest, and Suzaku called his name out to no one in particular when his lips closed around his cock, his gaze glassy and fixed on the air in front of him as his hands scrambled at the sheets.

"Oh, yes," Suzaku breathed, his right hand finally finding Lelouch's hair and running through it, muscles tight but never pulling. "Oh, yes, please—"

Lelouch released Suzaku from his mouth, making Suzaku shiver and groan and making his toes curl at the sensation of the cold air. "Who are you speaking to?"

"Please, Sir," Suzaku said reverently, and Lelouch hummed, apparently satisfied and leaned back down to suck more cock. Within less than a minute, though, Suzaku was scrambling at his shoulders again, saying "Lelouch, I'm gonna— I'm gonna—"

Lelouch pulled back again. At first he said nothing, just catching his breath. Staring Suzaku right in the eye, he teased him with a single finger, making him grit his teeth when he pulled it back, a string of pre and spit connecting it to Suzaku's skin. He broke eye contact to look down at the mess he'd made, musing, "As much as you know I love watching you come, I'd rather have you fuck me at some point tonight, yes?" Suzaku whined, a longing sound choked off in the back of his throat, as an answer. Lelouch smiled fiendishly. "That sounds like an affirmative." He let go of Suzaku's cock and crawled back over the bed to the nightstand where they kept the lube; Suzaku sat up on his knees while he was going, and waited.

"Wait," said Suzaku, as Lelouch pumped lube onto his hand.

"Hmm."

"I haven't done anything for you, yet." Suzaku said. "Let me—"

Lelouch snorted, a blatant attempt to act derisive, and boy if Suzaku didn't find it hot. But Suzaku could hear his voice wobble ever so slightly when he said, "You just love fingering me." Suzaku was behind him in an instant, pulling him into his lap, whispering into his ear.

"And what if I do, Sir?" He rocked his hips up against Lelouch's clothed butt as a form of punctuation, making Lelouch squirm and lean back against him, let out his breath in a quick pant. "Is that so wrong?" His hand trailed down Lelouch's front; Lelouch's hand found his and guided it, making Suzaku groan when he brought it down between his legs and squeezed. "Isn't this what you _want_?"

"Off," Lelouch gasped, "get these stupid pants off."

Suzaku laughed and with a murmured "Can do, Sir," got to work doing exactly that. Lelouch grinded his hips back against him, making it hard to do, and Suzaku nipped at his ear in what would have probably been retaliation if he hadn't known Lelouch enjoyed it so much. It served its purpose anyway; Lelouch held still, and Suzaku popped open the button of his jeans, pulling them down along with his underwear. Lelouch wriggled and kicked until they were off. Suzaku took advantage of the moment to give Lelouch's cock a single appreciative pump and it was Lelouch's turn to call out Suzaku's name, pleasured and wanton and needy and so cute Suzaku had to kiss him as he did it again and again and again. Lelouch pushed at Suzaku's chest gasping "enough, enough" and Suzaku laughed and relented, arranged him gently and lovingly on his back on the bed and propped up his hips on a pillow and covered his fingers in lube.

"If I told you," Lelouch breathed as Suzaku began to slip a finger into him, slow and gentle, "that I cleaned down there in the shower this morning—" his breath hitched— "there, yes— thinking of this, thinking of you," he said, and his back relaxed into the mattress as his legs spread, toes gently curling into the sheets, whole body luxuriating, somehow radiating an air of regality, of being in total control even as his breath shook and his voice wavered with pleasure, "h- how would that make you feel?"

Suzaku's dick twitched. "Really fucking hot." He answered, and he couldn't help gasping as he nudged a second finger inside, Lelouch pressing his hips back to urge it in. Lelouch was always so hot inside, Suzaku couldn't take it, and Lelouch knew this, wiggling his hips and playing it up for show, moaning a little bit louder than he normally would just to get Suzaku all out of breath. It wasn't part of the play-up, though, a couple of minutes later when he brought the back of his hand up into his mouth and began whispering _pleasepleaseplease_ into it over and over without even realizing he was doing it, pressing his hips in full time back against Suzaku's probing fingers without even any consciousness of the act. More, more, _more._ His toes were pressing fully into the mattress now with the force of their tensing and he felt Suzaku kiss somewhere near his temple and whisper "God, you're so fucking hot" somewhere near his ear (perhaps as much to himself as were Lelouch's repetitions) and then he was empty, empty and canting his hips up and whining and begging _please oh please oh please_ and then Suzaku was _in him,_ filling him up, splitting him open so perfectly there were no words for it any longer, just stuttered gasps of dissolved language. Nothing to communicate but void; the emptiness of how he'd been without Suzaku, the blank fullness of warmth that took over him now that he was here.

Suzaku started off slow. He always did; it hurt otherwise and he never wanted to hurt Lelouch, not even the tiniest bit, and his left hand tangled with Lelouch's right, now, as he adjusted Lelouch's hips and started to move in earnest. Lelouch's legs came up and wrapped around Suzaku's waist. Suzaku's right hand travelled all over Lelouch's body. There was little uncharted territory there left for him, but now he could follow the map he'd made like a seasoned cartographer, and Lelouch cried out at nearly every touch.

Moving together like this was always so easy. Everything they did was perfect if they worked as a team, they thought.

Nothing could ever change that.

When Lelouch came, he pressed his face into the crook where his lover's neck met his shoulder. His fingers tightened in Suzaku's, his lips mouthing _I love you_ over and over against warm skin and sweat. Suzaku pulled out and stumbled after his own orgasm, Lelouch egging him on with whispered encouragements and warm kisses until he, too, with a falling, almost pained-sounding cry ("that's it, Suzaku, that's it"), staggered to completion in his arms.

Suzaku must have fallen asleep at some point afterward; when he awoke, it was to Lelouch running fingers through his hair.

He pretended to be asleep for a few minutes more, so that Lelouch would keep doing it. When he opened his eyes, Lelouch was actually gazing at him lovingly. His heart tripped.

"Good morning." He said, a yawn escaping on the tail end of the phrase.

"It's only seven o' clock." Lelouch replied, sounding amused.

"In the morning?"

"In the evening, silly; we didn't sleep all day."

It was still December 22nd, which meant dinner still had to be made. "Alright then." Lelouch said, gathering his feet onto the floor and getting ready to stand up. "I'm sorry; I wanted to get all the Christmas decorations up before you got home, but… anyway, I'm making you salmon."

Suzaku didn't even bother with a verbal response, just a wordless hum of sheer contentment. Life really was so good.

Lelouch reached into the closet for his clothes, but then thought better of it. "You know what, I think I'm going to have a shower first."

Showering together quickly turned into another makeout session for the two of them, but that ended with Lelouch finally pushing Suzaku away while laughing, saying "Alright, we need to actually get clean, come _on_." (Suzaku yelped adorably when Lelouch turned the cold bottle of shampoo upside-down over his head.) Afterward, once he'd dried himself off and gotten dressed, Lelouch headed for the kitchen to get to work on dinner. On his way there, because of how the apartment was laid out, he happened to pass the front door.

"Huh, that's funny." Said Lelouch. "Suzaku, did you notice if the door was locked?"

"C. C. was the last one out, wasn't she?" Suzaku replied following Lelouch into the kitchen. Lelouch shrugged. As far as either of them knew, C. C. didn't have a key. "Anyway, can I help with anything?"

"You asked me to make you dinner when you got home." Lelouch said, sounding a little amused. "Sit down in the living room or something."

"But I wanna help," Suzaku whined. He came up behind Lelouch and wrapped his arms around his waist, nuzzling into the junction between his collarbone and neck. "Missed you."

Lelouch's heart stuttered. "Suit yourself," he said, "if you're so desperate for something to do, help me out by chopping these onions."

Suzaku burst into a brillantine grin that, even after all these years, still never failed to set Lelouch's face on fire. "See, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

Suzaku was nowhere near as prolific a chef as Lelouch, but he was familiar with his own kitchen, and so only opened the wrong drawer once in his quest for a knife and cutting board. He knew he was only being asked to cut the onions because Lelouch himself cried at them too easily, and felt humiliated when his eyes got misty over root vegetables. While Suzaku washed onions, Lelouch opened the neatly kept porcelain box of recipe cards, copied out in the same elegant, flowing hand he took notes about his novels in, and selected the one bearing instructions for Suzaku's favorite salmon stir-fry. By this point he knew how to make it by heart, of course, but there was something calming about the ritual. After reading all the ingredients and instructions over, he looked over at Suzaku, and was alarmed by what he saw.

"Suzaku? You're bleeding."

"Huh?" Suzaku looked down at his finger. Ah, he'd gone too hard with the knife and cut his index finger, right above the knuckle. "Oh. My bad."

Lelouch shook his head. "Just stay right there and I'll get the first aid kit."

When Lelouch returned, he took Suzaku into the den (not even thinking of the risk of dripping red blood onto white fabric) and spent the better half of ten minutes patching him up, first wiping the wet blood from the wound with an antibacterial wipe, then applying some kind of opaque ointment from a little tube, then carefully bundling up the cut with a wad of gauze and a strip of white medical tape. When he was done, Suzaku's finger felt like it had a snowball attached to it, if snowballs were room temperature and soft. He turned his finger around, inspecting from all angles.

"You could have just used a regular Band-Aid, y'know."

"I know, but…"

Suzaku shook his head and silenced him with a kiss. He pulled back just enough for their foreheads to touch, admiring glassy eyes before they snapped back to the present.

"Not what I meant. I'm very grateful for the way you look after me. Thank you."

"A- ah." Said Lelouch. He flushed at the praise, visibly flustered, red across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose and down to his neck and God, he was so cute Suzaku just had to kiss him again. This time, when he pulled back, Lelouch was holding on to him by the front of his sweater. "I'm glad. I enjoy it when you let me take care of you." So much Lelouch admitted in a low, breathy tone, and then pulled Suzaku in and kissed with his tongue and his teeth, and Suzaku moaned and brought his unwounded hand up to cup Lelouch's cheek and kissed him back and then laughed into the kiss and separated their jointed mouths.

"No, no, no." He said, still laughing, in between light kisses to Lelouch's forehead and nose and cheeks and lips. "We can't just make out now, we still have things we need to do today."

Lelouch hummed. "That's true, but…"

Suzaku snorted and stood up, offering Lelouch his hand. "C'mon. Let's make dinner now, and we can make out all night long after, if that's what you want."

"But then dinner will get cold." Said Lelouch, smiling, as Suzaku pulled him up.

"After we eat it."

So it was better, by a long shot, than the first aid Suzaku had received most of the other times Suzaku had cut himself in his life. Twin stitch-shaped scars still raised the skin on the thin insides of his arms, dozens across the road, one on each side down the street. The remnants of a darker time, when he had blamed himself mercilessly for his father's death by traffic accident. For most of his childhood, his mother, Akiko Kururugi, had kept the truth from him; but the details of these things always do surface in one way or another, don't they. For young Suzaku, it came in the form of a newspaper clipping then a decade and a half old, long discarded to the bottom of his mother's sewing kit, describing how the father he'd never known had died speeding to the hospital to watch the birth of his firstborn child.

Akiko hadn't know about the cutting at the time and likely never would. It was Suzaku's third most closely guarded secret; rather than for any rush of endorphins it may have brought, or _for attention_ like his classmates who saw his arms in the shower after gym sneered, Suzaku Kururugi took an X-Acto to his own skin out of a deeply held conviction that he simply hadn't suffered enough for taking his father's life, and that in order to make things right in the world, he needed to add to his own pain in any way possible.

He rolled up his sleeves and got to work almost every day for two years until one day, when he was seventeen, in the middle of one of his routine acts of penance, he decided to try to die. He survived that night, but he lost so much blood he was dizzy, lost so much he almost had to go to the E. R. — which to him, he thought, would have been worse than dying— and he remembered sitting naked in the bathtub, dirt still on his knees, listening to his mother heat up fried rice through the floor, watching the red flow and flow from his arms in a delirious stupor, his insides staining the bathwater pink, thinking that if he lived through this, he had to find another method of self-punishment, that he could never go anywhere near himself with a knife again.

It had worked, bizarrely. He'd quit cold turkey, and the urge had never come back, not as strongly as it had before. He'd distracted himself with other things, and then when he'd decided to become a vet, school had taken up a great portion of his time. So much was the truth, and so much he'd told Lelouch the first night he'd ever taken off his clothes in front of him; the lights had been off, but Lelouch had felt the scars, and Suzaku had felt Lelouch freeze. He whispered the story with his chin resting on Lelouch's head, and Lelouch had listened silently and respectfully and then kissed each and every one.

But there was a part that Suzaku had left out, something he'd never told Lelouch or his mother or a single soul in the entire world. Suzaku Kururugi's first most closely guarded secret was that, when the buzz of the outside world faded away, whenever the bright backdrop of Lelouch's laughter melted into the scenery, whenever it briefly bowed out along with the happy trill of Arthur purring at his ankles, the smiles on the faces of the good pet owners when Suzaku was able to tell them _it isn't terminal_ or _you've got a trooper on your hands, ma'am, hit by a truck but she'll be alright,_ the fluttering of warm beating animal hearts under his fingertips— when all of stepped into another room and closed the door and Suzaku was left alone with himself, the little voice, deep down inside, that had told him that he needed to die that night in the bathroom was still there.

It was silent, seated in the corner, but still he acutely felt its presence. It was not gone. Mute, dormant, its cold beady eyes like two craters boring into Suzaku from behind. Let the door open; let all the wonderful shimmering things come back in and distract him again; let him even be happy.

It could not stop its distant gaze, fixed always, silently, on him.

Lelouch and Suzaku's apartment was angled so that the windows did not provide a view of the parking lot that abutted the building on its northern face, outside. The view faced the street, instead, and a grassy field long ago flattened in preparation for some retail development venture that had never panned out. On the other side of this field, jutting up from the closed, flat land of suburban Houston, a meager crop of skinny ponderosa pines hipchecked each other for growing room, their trunks hooked and curved at odd angles, their needles outstretched like hands to the sun.

If Lelouch and Suzaku's apartment had faced the northern parking lot, things may have gone very differently.

As it was, Marianne Lamperouge, satisfied with what she'd observed, quietly took the elevator down to the first floor. She slipped out of the apartment building by the northern entrance, where she knew Lelouch and Suzaku would not see her, and made her way across the parking lot, back to the getaway car where Flora Lamperouge sat in the driver seat, painting the fingernails on her left hand red.

Marianne was pleased as punch. She slid into the driver's seat and, slipping off the black high heels she was wearing, said "I knew it. He _is_ shacked up with the Chinese doctor, and they are screwing like bunnies."

Flora checked the rear view mirror. "Are we driving?"

"Drive."

They drove.

Marianne put her stockinged feet— she'd changed her outfit, thrown on some sunglasses, and tucked her hair into a beret since casing Suzaku's practice, just to make herself less recognizable on first glance if Suzaku had happened to see her— up on the dash, reached into her bra, and pulled out a carton of cigarettes. There was a BiC lighter in the glove compartment, and it sparked twice before igniting her smoke with flame. She inhaled deeply and exhaled carcinogens while Flora messed with the rear view mirror again; she was having trouble seeing clearly on the dark road.

"Jesus, what the hell are so many people doing in the boonies at seven P. M.," Flora said. "Can you turn the light off, I can't see."

Marianne reached up and pressed the button on the ceiling; the car's cabin light shut off and they were engulfed in darkness. "You always do get nervous around big crowds of people, don't you."

"Cops," Flora said dismissively. They were driving fast, but at the speed limit, and they were approaching a crowded highway. Given no choice, she merged into the traffic. "Anyway, you really think it's milk carton boy?"

"Are you implying I wouldn't know my own son?"

"No, I'm not implying that. I would never imply that." Flora licked her lips. She wasn't looking at Marianne, focusing instead on navigating the web of cars the road fanned out in front of her. "But I think, if you really think you've found him, then, you know, someone should tell Charlie."

The next sound out of Flora's mouth was not, in fact, a word at all, but a horrible shriek several octaves above her speaking voice as Marianne ground out her cigarette butt on the back of Flora's wrist. The car jerked to the right and rolled into the grass to a serenade of brassy honks as Marianne grabbed Flora by the peter-pan collar and, in a movement remarkable for its fluidity, yanked her close enough to hiss directly into her ear.

"We've been over this, Florie-whore." She said. Her breath smelled stale like cigarettes and Flora was whimpering, trembling in Marianne's grip like a frightened animal. "Charlie doesn't need to know about this stage of the plan. You know why? Because it doesn't matter. It's inconsequential. We're trying not to waste his time." She paused. "It's irrelevant."

"Okay," said Flora, desperately trying to placate her. "Alright. Okay."

"Charlie will get told when it is time. When we are good and ready. I'm surprised at you, Flora. Did you really forget such a simple set of instructions? Maybe all that speed you stole from Daddy is catching up with you?"

Flora's teeth were almost chattering. "No, Marianne. It's not, Marianne. I got it."

"You scare so easily, little bunny." Marianne murmured. Her mouth was moving closer to Flora's neck and Flora, Flora was afraid. She was doing her best to hold still, but it was like the harder she tried, the more her body betrayed her.

As always, with these things.

When Monday came, as it has this habit of doing, it was Christmas. But when Tuesday came, as it also has this habit of doing, Suzaku completed his morning ritual as usual. He rose at 6 A. M. to the sound of his phone alarm and Lelouch groaning and rolling over in bed. He grabbed a quick shower, brushed his teeth, ostensibly dried his hair, got dressed and poured hot black coffee from the pre-set maker into a steel gray thermos. He went back to the bedroom for his wallet and his keys, pocketed both of them, then couldn't resist dropping a kiss onto Lelouch's forehead. Lelouch hummed happily and sleepily without opening his eyes. It must be nice, Suzaku thought, genuinely and without a hint of sarcasm or resentment, to be able to sleep in as late as you wanted. He was glad to help Lelouch to be able to do that. He was lucky. "Love you." Suzaku whispered, unsure if Lelouch heard him, and then, at approximately 6:30, he left.

Suzaku's commute was not particularly arduous. As mentioned before, his and Lelouch's apartment was located in a sleepy commercial outskirt of Houston, and Suzaku's practice happened to be part of the same suburb. At this point Suzaku was capable of completing his commute more or less on autopilot, keys, car, short stretch of road, pull into his parking spot.

So the fact that there a redheaded girl was sitting at the desk where Milly usually sat threw him off even more than it would otherwise.


End file.
